Bay Area

Below Andrew Perkins’ rural home in the Santa Cruz mountains spans a network of fire roads. Meant for fire containment, Andrew hopped on his bike as a kid and used the dirt roads as a jumping off point to blaze a new path into the woods. He’d veer off when he saw an adventure waiting to happen and then find his way back on the road to get home in time for dinner. These fire roads were his first gateway to nature.

In 2015, Andrew started San Francisco design brand,Fire Road. The Santa Cruz mountains not only inspired the name, but also his love for designing and building. At 12-years-old, Andrew constructed his first project, a tricked out Home Alone-style treehouse. Booby traps, pulley system for transporting food and water, a tripwire that sent a shoe on a string flying toward your face. You name it, this treehouse had it.

While Andrew’s design aesthetics evolved beyond booby traps (although this writer would argue that booby traps should be incorporated into more things), he still puts the same passion and detail into every single one of his creations. Fire Road is focused on creating iconic home goods with unique material combinations, minimalist design, and excellent function. Every product is made in the USA, combining advanced production with superior craftsmanship to create innovative and inviting accessories for the home. Andrew values permanence, quality, and sustainability in everything he does.

Since the beginning, beautifully functional has been the foundation of Fellow’s design principles. Every element of a product must equally push forward both functionality and aesthetics. To celebrate brands who share in our same approach when making and creating, we’re launching a new collaboration platform, Fellow Partnerships. We’re honored to work with Andrew Perkins and Fire Road for our first official partnership.

Everyday objects meet high-design for a collection centered around the art of entertaining for the Fire Road x Fellow Collection. Carrara marble contrasted with powder coated aluminum in Fellow’s signature matte black fuse together for a timeless yet modern serving set that includes a serving tray, bar tray, and bottle opener.

“While designing Fire Road x Fellow, I was inspired by opposing materials coming together to create a beautiful relationship. The Carrara marble is the natural element, while the matte black aluminum leans industrial,” said Andrew. “Each individual piece has a little bit of the other pieces in their design. They are a stunning complementary set, but each piece looks effortless standing alone.”

Fire Road x Fellow is a limited-run collection. Shop each piece separately or snag the entire set to save $28.

March is Women’s History Month; a time to celebrate and recognize the important achievements that women have made in our nation by telling their stories, illuminating their achievements, and supporting their causes.

We here at 820 Valencia St. are joining in the celebration and declaring it Boss Ladies Month at Fellow!

The Fellow Playground had the honor of hosting Dylan Siemens, the 2017 US Brewers Cup Champion, for our #OnyxXFellow Brew Master Class Weekend. Not only does Dylan bust out incredible cups of coffee, he couldn’t be a nicer human being. The Fellow team didn’t want our new Arkansas friends to leave. While the weekend was jam-packed with activities, by far the best part was watching Dylan in action teach brew classes. The level of his knowledge is mindblowing, and we were like kids in a coffee-infused candy listening to his tidbits and sipping on his brews.

Do you take your coffee strong but your cocktails stronger? Welcome. You’ve come to the right place. The Fellow crew teamed up with Onyx Coffee Labfor one heck of an exciting weekend of events and amusements. On the first evening, our coffee spilled into our liquor cabinet for our Coffee + Cocktails shindig at the Fellow Playground. Dylan Siemens of Onyx Coffee Lab, who also happens to be the current US Brewers Cup Champion, concocted two coffee-infused cocktails: a Cascara Gin and Tonic and a Winter Brew Daiquiri.

Since both cocktails take a little more effort than a vodka cranberry, we suggest serving a round to impress at your next living room soiree. We guarantee a buzzworthy evening! Read More

The Fellow Playground is your space to play – to brew a cup, share a tip, take a class, or just talk shop. Each month we select five coffees from roasters we are excited about to feature in our store.

When you enter the Playground, you can buy a whole bag of beans to go or buy an individual serving in a test tube. If you go the test tube route, you can BYOC (brew your own coffee) with one of the Fellow Brew Guides. We love this feature as it gives our guests a chance to try out our products AND lets them walk away with a cup of coffee they’ve probably never tried before! The Fellow team rotates in as Brew Guides, so quite often you will find our founder, Jake, brewing in the back with customers. Your coffee will always be consistently dialed-in and delicious, but we all have personal tips and techniques to share so your brewing sessions in the Playground will be unique every time!

Fellow’s first ever Brew Master Class Weekend is just around the corner! Dylan Siemens, the 2017 US Brewers Cup Champion from Onyx Coffee Lab, is taking over the Fellow store from January 19-21 for three days of brewing events and amusements. Read More

As we enter the final stretch of production tweaks for Stagg EKG, we’ve released a select few EKG prototypes into the wild. This gives us a chance to gain incredibly valuable feedback from both at home users and baristas on what they like, and what we can still improve upon. Although our La Marzocco user testing in Seattle is complete, you can still catch a sneak peek of EKG in Santa Cruz, or San Francisco at these cafes:Read More

We love pairing with Bay Area roasters and cafes to brew a solid cup of Joe. This week we met up with Marc from Bedfellows Roasting Company to try out his Kenya Karinga Offering. We had the opportunity to grab some freshly roasted beans from him which was a blast because as the beans degassed and matured past the roast we witnessed the flavor profile evolve. For coffee nerds, this is a pretty special treat.

For those not familiar with degassing:

When coffee is roasted, gases form inside the bean. After roasting, gases (mostly carbon dioxide) start seeping out of the bean. When coffee is a few days old and very fresh, a bulk of the carbon dioxide formed leaves your beans. During this time, CO2 escapes so quickly it negatively affects the flavor of your coffee by creating an uneven extraction. (If you’re interested in learning more about degassing stay tuned for next week’s blog post!) This degassing process is the reason roasters start selling their coffee a few days to a week after the roast date.

The Results:

We snagged Bedfellows’ coffee straight from the roaster and tried a cup every day through the bean’s maturation. As the roast degassed, we picked up bright and juicy pomelo, honey, cola and stone fruit. By day 5 these flavors were in full bloom. This is a great roast for folks who like a nice evenness between their acidity and rich flavors. We used Duo Coffee Steeper as its full immersion brewing process did a great job of pulling out these flavors as the roast matured.

Bedfellows supplies coffee all around the bay and does a monthly coffee subscription service. If you’re looking for a local San Francisco spot to try a bag, you can find them at Green Heart Foodsin the Mission, and Piano Fight in the Tenderloin. Ready for a subscription? They just released their newest coffee for March’s subscription – a Peru that has nutty, soft citrus taste notes with medium body.